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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24488008">What's right (is it my right)?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag'>ninhursag</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alluded to hurt/comfort, Break Up, Canon Related, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin Break Up, Michael Guerin Needs a Hug, Protective Alex Manes, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:15:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,581</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24488008</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of a desperate situation, Michael is not close to ok. It's more than Maria can cope with, especially without all the information. And then there's Alex who won't look away.</p><p>The day after aewriting's "These changes ain’t changing me". And after. Thank you so much for letting me play in your sandbox!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>145</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>What's right (is it my right)?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/aewriting/gifts">aewriting</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23320450">These changes ain’t changing me</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/aewriting/pseuds/aewriting">aewriting</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>If you read aewriting's amazing story you know exactly what happened to Michael. It's not said out loud here but the implication is there.</p><p>Michael's less than stellar coping mechanisms are on full display.</p><p>ALSO note, this fic is season two emotionally adjacent but not really compliant.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Michael sleeps for about twelve hours after he comes off his weekend bender or wherever he'd gone to. It's not a weird thing to do, but it's not typical Michael. He's twitchy as hell, normally. Especially after he's blown off steam and done whatever he does in his lab.</p><p>All kinetic energy, hands bouncing, picking things up and putting them down. Eyes everywhere.</p><p>This time he-- he won't really look at her and he always looks at her. That's the thing Maria's noticed about him, if they're in a room together, he always, he's right there, his gaze, hazel and bright, taking her in like she is the only thing worth all of his attention-- supernova energy focused on her.</p><p>Unless Alex is there in the room, but that's not something she wants to think about too hard. How her best friend is Michael's-- whatever he was. Ex. First something.</p><p>It's just them though, now, and Michael doesn't really look at her, he just mumbles something off hand, like, "sorry, I got distracted, I'm real tired, Maria," and crawls off into the airstream without saying much even though it's the middle of the day. Even though he sleeps in her bed now, mostly, these days. </p><p>She likes seeing him there, likes the way he looks when he wakes up, big eyed and soft, wondering at where he's found himself.</p><p>She checks on him after she's done the inventory for the Pony and looked over the books. She would have anyway, but Alex texts. Alex does that sometimes, texts her, usually casual notes or a, hey, how are you sort of update. </p><p>Just being there, mostly.</p><p>He's like that, Alex is, just there in his own careful way. Showing up, he calls it. This time he asks her how Michael is instead, though, which is new. </p><p>She texts him back, fine. He's fine. </p><p>But she's not really sure.</p><p>The airstream door is actually locked, which makes her frown, but she knows where he keeps the spare key.</p><p>He's asleep in all his clothes on the narrow cot of a bed, curled up small and on top of the sheets. His lips are parted and his curls are a plastered mess of sweat. His boots are still on.</p><p>She thinks about inching up and helping to pull them off, but when she gets closer, close enough to brush a sweaty curl back from his cheek, he--</p><p>He flinches, makes a low deep hurt sound in his throat that makes her jump back. She's not-- she thinks about waking him up, but she's not, she can't-- he needs the sleep. Even nightmare ridden sleep is rest, right?</p><p>He seems fine when he wakes up and saunters out of bed. Scrubbed clean and pink, in a plain black t-shirt that's just a little loose on his shoulders and newer than anything she usually sees him in. Like it belonged to someone else, but not for long. She thinks about asking, but doesn't.</p><p>Michael makes her dinner without being asked, chopping vegetables and humming in perfect pitch. He doesn't move like he's in any pain and he looks better rested. There are bruises on him but nothing a bender wouldn't explain.</p><p>He grins at her and drops a kiss on her mouth when she's in range and says, "hope you're hungry."</p><p>It feels casual. But he backs off right after instead of coming closer.</p><p>She isn't, but the food smells great after it goes in the oven. She's gonna need to up her time at the gym if he keeps cooking for her like this, but it makes him so visibly happy she doesn't have the heart to say so.</p><p>He gives her a wicked grin and a wink once he has the timer on, spinning to face her. His mouth curls like he's hungry for the taste of her, pink tongue all eager. Definitely the face he makes when like he's about to kiss her.</p><p>He doesn't. Slips away a little too easily when she tries to kiss him instead.</p><p>She frowns at his back and bites her tongue. Doesn't ask if he's ok. If he's not, what is she going to do about it anyway?</p><p>Maria doesn't say anything when he serves her a plate with a flourish and then back to pour them both a drink. Hair of the dog for that weekend bender?</p><p>He doesn't look hungover, he still looks tired. More tired when he's not doing anything with his hands. They… his hands are still when he sits down across from her. Not twitching or fiddling with his napkin.</p><p>"Michael?" She asks. She can't just-- he's right here, she can't just say nothing.</p><p>He smiles at her, too still, but showing his teeth. "Yeah?"</p><p>"Is there…uh, something you want to tell me?" she says after a moment of too heavy quiet.</p><p>Michael makes a face and gives a shrug and then suddenly, just like that, he's totally different, the skin and sheen of fine sloughing off right before her eyes. </p><p>She can see it, the second it happens, the shift from the sweetness he'd been showing to… she didn't know. A thing with teeth.</p><p>Whatever he says next is going to be terrible.</p><p> "What? What would I have to tell you?* </p><p>She breathes in. "You… I don't know. Is there something?"</p><p>"You asking if I fucked a Lindsey?"  He's still smiling. Teeth. She can see it so clearly, recognizes this him though she can't remember being this far on the wrong side of it much. Blood on his teeth, like after a bar fight he'd lost on purpose. "That what you're thinking?"</p><p>She stares at him. "No," she says, a lot quieter, staring at him. The edge and the way he'd gone still as a trap. "That's not what I was thinking." Should she be? The way he's looking at her. He looks like a dog that got hit, slunk into the corner and growling, not one that got into what he wasn't supposed to.</p><p>His words don't match.</p><p>He licks his lips and leans forward, palms on the table. Careful, though, not quite in her space. Not close enough to threaten, not really. "Actually. No. It was more like a Larry," he says. Smiling, daring now. Daring her. "I guess I missed dick too much."</p><p>For a second, she sees red, forgets what she thought she might know. That-- that makes its own kind of sense, the way he's acting and fuck. It doesn't match-- no no maybe it does. </p><p>Her hands fist up and before she really thinks it through, any of it, she hears the words spill out of her own mouth like someone else is saying them. "A Larry," she asks, tone bitter bright. "Or an Alex Manes?"</p><p>He flinches. Hard. As if she's slapped him, as if he was rocked with the force of her words. </p><p>"He would never do that," Michael hisses. Clear eyed with some emotion. "Don't. Leave him alone."</p><p>"Never do what?" Maria whispers. Shakes her head. "Cheat with you? Be your Larry? Bet he would if you asked."</p><p>Michael laughs at her then, all broken edges. "Not likely," he mumbles. "Seriously, you can call me whatever you want, but this isn't his fault. Don't put it on him." Then he's on his feet, too fast to follow, though she doesn't try. </p><p>The door swings shut behind him and he's gone.</p><p>She scrapes her dinner into the trash instead and pretends she doesn't hear the sounds of him hitching the airstream outside back to his truck.</p><p>Goes to bed with her earplugs in.</p><p>In the morning he's gone completely. No traces but the tire tracks, like he's always been temporary.</p><p>She texts Alex with a quick, <i>don't talk to me about Guerin don't care to hear it</i></p><p>Alex doesn't right off. Not to her. Never even acknowledges the text as read.</p><p>She sees him a couple of days later, talking at Guerin, not at the Pony, he hasn't ventured there yet. Out back, out by the Crashdown when she's going to see Liz and Rosa.</p><p>"Let me," Alex says to Guerin, too loud, frantic. Maria knows that tone in him, something young in it. "Please. You shouldn't be alone with this."</p><p>"I let you do too much already," Michael hisses back. Then he goes quieter so she doesn't overhear the rest. Just the tone, the desperate anger beating out like fire.</p><p>Maria turns around on her heels and walks in the other direction, texting Liz that she's running late as she goes. She only needs to circle a few times before Alex's car is gone, Michael with it.</p><p>She knows, deep down she knows that this isn't a cheating thing. Michael is right. Alex would never do that. Whatever that was.</p><p>She catches them together again-- catches Alex hunting Michael down-- out by the parking lot at Saturn's Rings. She's stopped at a light so she doesn't see much but the set of their shoulders. The stiff way Michael holds his body like Alex has him trapped there against his own truck.</p><p>Then Alex alone a few days later, sitting across from her at her own bar. Dark eyes steady and not unkind, but solid. This was Alex protecting his own and maybe not sure what side of that she was on. It's not… unearned. But she'd thought they were past that.</p><p>"He didn't cheat on you," he says. Ok now he's ignoring what she told him straight out.</p><p>Maria looks away, before turning back. He looks steady, still, dark eyes luminous. Her oldest friend, bar Liz Ortecho. She'd probably cheat with him if he swung her way, hard to believe Michael wouldn't. He'd said not, though, chosen her and chosen her, for every reason she didn't understand. Until he suddenly didn't.</p><p>Then she's talking. "That's not what he told me. And if he was lying that was a messed up lie to tell. Either way."</p><p>"Yeah," Alex breathes. "Well it's a messed up situation." She stares at him waiting. He shrugs. "Not my story, ok? But… listen, it's not Michael's fault. Don't let him push you away, Maria, not like this."</p><p>She shakes her head. "If he wants to come in and talk to me himself, I'll consider that."</p><p>Alex bites down on his lower lip, tense and young looking. "I don't think he can," he says. </p><p>"Well, then I can't either," she says back. "I asked you straight up not to talk to me about him anymore and I need you to honor that."</p><p>Alex swallows visibly and Maria takes pity on him. "He's not your responsibility either, Alex. Let him take care of himself, he's done it before."</p><p>That makes his eyes narrow. "I hear you," he says. He leaves not long after. He must be tired as hell, the limp from his prosthetic leg is actually visible today.</p><p>Michael comes by himself, not long after, unshaven and wary eyed, like he expects her to start yelling at him any moment. He's got his black cowboy hat on, shadowing his face. She can still see bruises on him, but more exhaustion than fighting this time. She hopes.</p><p>She wonders for a moment if Alex passed on the message about Michael coming to talk to her himself, if that's what this is. How she's going to take it if it is.</p><p>He says, "hey, I owe you an apology."</p><p>She raises an eyebrow. "Yeah."</p><p>"I'm sorry, Maria. I'm not… I was out of line with the things I said. Did." He looks up at her from under his lashes, waiting for a response.</p><p>"You were," she agrees. Looks at him straight on, "Am I supposed to take you back?"</p><p>That startles a laugh out of him. "No," he says. And then, starkly, "I'm not any good to anyone right now, probably wasn't to begin with."</p><p>Her stomach hurts. She knows kind of, from what he's not saying, from what Alex is and isn't, but she doesn't really <i>know</i> until he says the words out loud. Shakes her head, not sure if he's about to tell her. Not sure if she can keep the space between them if he says the words and makes whatever it was that happened to him real.</p><p>He doesn't say anything else though, so she talks, filling in the silence before it festers anymore, "you were. You were good to me."</p><p>That hits him, those eyes of his gone wide and golden. The handsome line of his jaw under the stubble. He swallows. "Not good enough."</p><p>"How about…" she stops, thinks. What can she even say? "How about you be good to you?"</p><p>His mouth twists unpleasantly. "Sure, DeLuca," he says with a shrug. "Sure thing."</p><p>She pours him a drink and makes him pay full price for it and… and he does, pulls out the crumbled bills and lays them in the table. Then he tips his hat to her and walks out, easy. </p><p>"You're welcome to come back, Guerin," she calls after him. "As long as we're open!"</p><p>He nods and raises a hand. Sway to the hip and not looking back, but he does call out a, "thanks."</p><p>The next time she sees him, he's with Alex over by her pool table. He's not wearing his hat this time and he looks-- he looks better. </p><p>She hadn't realized just how bad he looked before until she sees him looking better. Moving and laughing and talking in a way that's not visibly guarded.</p><p>He doesn't need to be. Not with who he's with.</p><p>Alex looks better too, wary and watchful, but that's Alex. Different though, if only in the energy between them because Michael is letting him, without protest. Letting Alex keep watch, keep away everyone in touching distance, subtly and otherwise.</p><p>She comes over with their usuals and lets Alex do it to her too. Lets him slip in before she gets too close to Michael, lets him smile and take the drinks out of her hands.</p><p>"Hey, thanks, Maria," Alex says. And yeah, he's blocking her with his body from coming any closer, just with the way the space is set up. Big and solid and not quite letting her by. It's astonishing how much room Alex can take up when he wants to.</p><p>She's not sure he's even doing it on purpose, maybe could try to get past him, but it would be obvious if she did. She isn't completely sure he'd back down either. </p><p>She tries not to feel anything about that.</p><p>"Thank you," Michael says, from behind the broad length of Alex's shoulders, smiling at her, sunny and real. </p><p>He's reaching into his wallet to pay and she shakes her head, smiling back. That makes his eyes widen.</p><p>"Friends and family discount," Maria says, lightly. She doesn't stay to say more.</p><p>Relief, she feels relief. She wants to feel relief. That's what she wants.</p><p> </p><p>The next time she sees them after that, it's when she's dropping off her car for an oil change. Michael's sitting on the tailgate of his truck, Alex next to him. It's not-- they're just sitting, knees pressed together. She's too far away to see their faces. Too far away to hear anything they say to each other.</p><p>That's fine, she doesn't need to. She drops off her keys and goes.</p><p>She's got a lot on her plate and Alex has… Alex has got this.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Come yell at me on Tumblr @ninswhimsy if you want!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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